EXPRESS IN SMASH

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 338, 20 January 1937, Page 6

EXPRESS IN SMASH

NEAR PANMURE

LITTLE DAMAGE.

No Passengers Suffered Serious Injury.

Press Association —Copyright. Auckland, Last Night.

Three carriages and four trucks were derailed when a goods train of about 80 trucks crashed into the rear of the south-bound New Plymouth express in a cutting about a mile south of Panmure station just before 8 o’clock to-night. None of the passengers suffered serious injury. The Limited express, which left Auckland at 7.5 p.m., just before the New Plymouth train, had been brought to a standstill when a mechanical fault developed in the engine, and the New Plymouth train had stopped just past the Waipuna Road overhead bridge, where there is a bend in the line. After a brief survey of the damage had been taken the Limited express pulled slowly into Otahuhu, where the locomotive was replaced, resuming its journey south at 8.45, over an hour late The passengers from the three derailed carriages of the New Plymouth train were crowded into the two remaining carriages and taken to the Otahuhu station, where they waited until their luggage should be sent on to them. This train left Otahuhu again at 11.5.

A pasenger on the New Plymouth train said the impact was sufficient to throw the occupants of the train violently out of their seals. One woman fainted and several people received cuts and bruises but not even those in the end seats of the carriages where the damage was greatest were seriously hurt.

A peep into tne mail van revealed a jumble of small bags, suit cases, parcels, boxes, and one glistening new bicycle. The damage to the remaining carriages was confined to the platforms and an occasional splintered pane of glass, while two were lifted from their rear bogie’s by the following vehicle. In their hurried departure the passengers left in their seats newspapers, magazines, chocolate, bags of apples and a burst bag of confetti.